


Street Cat

by cultmagic



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Traits, Cat Jason Todd, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lazarus Pit Madness, M/M, Minor Injuries, This is so soft, Wolf Slade Wilson, joker gets dead, kitten thinks of nothing but murder all day, slade is soft and deadly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25886080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cultmagic/pseuds/cultmagic
Summary: Slade Wilson takes in a stray. It works out better than he expects it will.For Bottom Jason Todd Week 2020, Day 4: Animal traits/wing fic/kemonomimi
Relationships: Jason Todd/Slade Wilson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 381
Collections: Bottom Jason Todd Week 2020





	Street Cat

**Author's Note:**

> you dont know how hard it was not to name this A Street Cat Named Desire

As it is, he’s two days walk from Kathmandu, three days from Nanda Parbat at his back, and he has a well-trained stalker on his tail. He’s not worried, has no reason to believe he can’t handle whoever is following him, but caution has always served him well.

It’s not the League, though the way they walk is similar enough to a League assassin that the hair on his tail bristles instinctively. It’s not a gate he’s familiar with, and he doesn’t recall killing anyone worth missing recently, so it’s probably not a loved one seeking revenge. He can’t think of another reason to follow him through the mountain ranges of Nepal than to kill him.

He stops abruptly and turns in the direction of the footsteps. He waits. 

The footsteps come again after several minutes of silence, slow and gradually coming closer. Through the trees, he can see a shadow, and twenty feet away a boy appears.

He’s young, late teens or early twenties but it’s hard to tell with the dirt on his face. He’s fair-skinned under the filth so he’s likely not a native, though it's not out of the question, he has dark hair but for the shock of white (a mark for the dead, he knows), and his eyes are a vivid, luminous green.

So it’s one of Ra’s’ zombies after all. He doesn’t know how the boy managed to escape Nanda Parbat and thinks he must be in good favor with someone inside. Or maybe not so good, he amends as he draws his sword, because the boy is feral. Ferals, as a rule, don’t live long; they’re either put down before they can hurt anyone or they perish in the wilderness. Since the boy won’t do the latter, Slade will have to do the former. 

The boy flinches back, snarls in clear threat—and it is threatening. The boy is big, not quite as tall or wide as Slade but large enough to be dangerous if Slade is careless. His tail lashes restlessly behind him. Slade stares, then sheaths his blade, drawing a suspicious growl from the boy. He knows that peculiar gray pattern.

“You’re far from home, aren’t you, little bird?” he says, holding out a hand.  
…

He brings the boy to his safehouse in Kathmandu. He’s strangely docile now, following three steps behind Slade and curling up in the other end of the dugout at night. Slade doesn’t know why he’s acting so familiar; they crossed paths once during Jason Todd’s tenure as Robin, and it was a vicious knock-down, drag-out fight between himself and the Bat. If anything, Jason should be reacting with hostility.

Instead, he eats the food Slade gives him and seeks his warmth in his sleep. It makes Slade wonder just how much of Jason is left, if death and the Pit broke his mind beyond repair. If this is the case, he should put the boy down now if only to save himself the trouble. He doesn’t.

In his safehouse, Slade strips the boy of the ruined linen clothes he left Nanda Parbat in and bathes him. Jason is reluctant at first but quickly decides he enjoys the warm water after the unknown amount of time he’s spent wandering in the Nepalese winter. He kicks up a purr halfway through and goes limp under the washcloth. He keeps it up even after Slade drains the water and rubs him dry. 

Slade gives him a blanket instead of clothes and feeds him. He eats with his hands and lets Slade wipe them clean with only an obligatory grumble, then settles onto the couch with hazy, sleepy eyes, every bit of his mannerisms cat. He doesn't look Pit Mad, doesn't act it.

Slade watches him fall asleep from his position against the kitchen island. He’s wrapped up in the blanket, ears flicking as he dreams. How long has it been since he’s had somewhere safe and comfortable to sleep? Years, probably not since he died. The Lazarus Pit and everything that comes with it is not conducive to comfort.

He remembers the second Robin well for all that he only met him once. He was a tiny thing, ears and tail too big for his body, and mouthy as hell. He talked like a street kid and from what little he saw, fought like one too. He remembers his murder too, how the story spread like an infection once Joker got out of his latest stint in Arkham. It left a bad taste in his mouth then and it does the same now.

He makes a decision, then, and hopes Jason isn’t as goddamn annoying as his older brother or he might just kill him anyway.  
…

It’s slow going, but Slade manages to pull Jason back into himself. He’s nonverbal for most of a month, but by the second week, he’s coherent enough to read the books Slade buys for him. He takes over cooking, too, and is surprisingly adept. 

He doesn’t seem disturbed by Slade’s presence even as he comes back to himself. The morning the glowing of his eyes fades, Jason is sitting opposite Slade on the couch, wrapped in his blanket. He looks at Slade with clear eyes for the first time and, instead of leaping into a fight as Slade expects, he yawns widely and curls against the couch arm for a nap.

They carry on like that, bewilderingly domestic. Jason takes to sleeping in Slade’s bed and bites him when he tries to remove him. Slade stops trying after the first time, instead just tweaks his ear and calls him a brat. It comes out less irritated than he’d like. 

It’s during one of these moments that Jason breaks his silence. “Y’know,” he says, heedless of how hoarse his voice is, “you’re not as much of an asshole as B makes you out to be.”

Slade lifts his eyes from the email he’s writing to stare at Jason who stares back with a mean smile twisting up the edges of his mouth.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues, “you’re still an asshole, but you’re not that bad.”

“Kid, I’m worse than you think.”

“Maybe when you’re on the job,” says Jason, “Mister Nurses-Stray-Cats-Back-To-Health.”

Slade rolls his eyes and turns back to his laptop. It’s only his excellent self-control that stops his smile. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”

Jason laughs at him and rolls onto his stomach. “You still could.” He drops into sleep in the next breath. 

Slade doesn’t look away from the screen, but he’s not seeing it. He thinks that no, he really couldn’t.  
…

Two weeks later they go back to Gotham because it’s the only place Jason has ever known. They set up in a safe house in the West End, far away from both of Jason’s childhood homes. The Bat won’t look too closely here among the wealthier Gothamites. 

Slade starts taking jobs again now that Jason is totally self-sufficient. They keep him away for days at a time, usually not more than a week. Jason keeps busy while he’s gone; he’s planning something—what it is Slade’s not sure, but Jason makes use of the weapons stashed in the apartment. He hears talk of a new mask in the East End, but he doesn’t ask. If Jason wants his help, he’ll ask. 

Except one time he comes home (he’s not sure when it happened and he hates it, but not enough to change it) to Jason crying and bleeding on the floor. He’s babbling because he saw his family, fought them and lost. 

He talks while Slade bandages his wounds. He tells Slade that he was with the League after he came back from the dead and it was there that he met his baby brother Damian, who is a horrible, insufferable brat who Jason loves. He went feral after a year out of Pit Madness because they sent Damian to Gotham without telling him. He almost went feral again because he saw Damian in the Robin uniform, because he saw his replacement fighting next to his brother against him, because his father hit him and it hurts even if he didn’t know it was his son under the hood.

Slade tapes a bandage over the stitches in his side then draws him in for a kiss. He tastes like blood and tears and he’s still crying even as he kisses back, but Slade is okay with it. He brings a hand up and rubs behind Jason’s ear, pets the fur there and coaxes a purr out of him. It calms Jason enough to stop his crying.

“What are we doing next?” Slade asks.

Jason blinks up at him. “We?”

“We,” Slade agrees.

Jason’s eyes get bluer, creeping edges of Madness bleeding away. “I’m not giving up my territory,” he says. “But I want my family. All of it.”

“What’s stopping you from having it?”

Jason doesn’t answer, tucks himself closer and hides his face under Slade’s chin, but he doesn’t need to. Slade knows the weight of the fear that keeps Jason awake at night.  
…

No one knows who killed the Joker. The official GCPD statement is that they’re likely looking for a hybrid, but everyone knows they aren’t really looking. The woman who found the body tells the Gazette that it looks like a pack of wolves tore him apart. 

Slade knows it was only one wolf, and so does Jason. He comes home covered in blood and Jason greets him like he wants to lick it all off himself. He doesn’t, more because they don’t know where Joker’s been than because it's blood, but it’s a near thing.

Instead, he strips Slade down and shoves him in the shower. He’s waiting nude on the bed when Slade finishes, lounging all lazy and contented, and he flashes his most mischievous fanged grin when he’s pressed down into the bed by Slade’s full weight.  
…

Jason has his family reunion while Slade is out of town on a job. Judging from the headlines he sees on his way back into Gotham, it went less than ideally, but Jason is cheerful enough when Slade sees him next despite his black eye.

“B ain’t real happy about the Red Hood,” Jason says. He shrugs. “We had a fight about it, but I think we’re good, sorta.”

“Really?” He skims his fingers along the edges of the bruise.

“Oh,” Jason laughs. “A guy on the subway pulled my tail. He got a lucky shot in while I was dealin’ with his buddy.” He grabs Slade’s hand from his face and starts pulling him to their bedroom. “Now, are we gonna talk about scumbags all day or are you gonna greet me properly?”

Slade smiles and pulls Jason’s tail, ducks around him when Jason swings at him and leads the way.


End file.
